My old trick was 2.08 line spacing. It was the perfect way to nudge an essay that critical half page longer to meet a teacher’s requirements. But you, young student, have it better than I did. Because you have legal weed in many states. And also, you now have access to the perfect cheater font: Times Newer Roman.
Developed as a highly polished joke by the digital agency MSCHF, Times Newer Roman is a freely downloadable, subtly stretched makeover of the typeface we all know, designed to run about 5%-10% wider than the classic Times New Roman.
“We had to go in character by character, widening specific letters that made sense along the x-axis, while also making sure that we maintained the proper stroke width and curve modeling,” explains Gabe Whaley, founder and CEO of MSCHF. “It can’t look like we just stretched characters, because that would be very obvious in the end.”
[Image: MSCHF]Technically, the team started with a Times New Roman clone called Nimbus Roman No. 9 (no doubt for licensing issues). Modifying it was a process that took two weeks to get just right; it required finding the balance between a font that’s wide enough to make a tangible difference in an assignment, but not so wide that the casual observer could possibly spot the difference.
The final product looks amazing, though–the equivalent prank to a master sculptor shaping fake vomit. It was already downloaded 5,000 times in its first day of launch, and for good reason. If you’re writing a 15-page, single spaced document, Times Newer Roman saves you almost 1,000 words getting there.
“Brevity is the soul of wit,” says Whaley. “Write less and choose your words wisely.”
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